Memória
by YoungKidStories
Summary: His name is John, or at least that's the name he was given. He doesn't remember his real name, who he is, where he's from, or how he got here. What he does know is that it started in a forest, and that the road ahead will be rough.
1. Prologue

Prologue

The freezing wind blew against me, dragging with it the helpless snowflakes that fell from the night sky. The bare streets I walked down were covered in a thick layer of fresh snow, the only sign of life being the footprints that trailed behind me. I then came to a stop, having come to a crossroads. I watched as the traffic lights went about their patterns without the input of people, cars or trucks. My eyes then drifted up to the plaque that stated the name of the cross-street.

"Fraser Street," I said to myself, "Why does that sound familiar?"

I looked to my left. There was an L shaped strip mall on one of the corners; a restaurant, Laundromat, and Starbucks, all closed. An RBC Bank was on the corner across from it. I could make out the dimly lit sign for a Blockbuster Video a little further down the road. I looked in front of me. There was another bank on the corner across the street from me, its still lit sign reading 'TD Canada Trust.' The street lights in that direction seemed to dim more into nothing the farther passed the bank I tried to look. I looked to my right. There was yet another bank on the corner that I was standing on. Its sign wasn't lit, but a nearby streetlight gave off enough illumination to read it.

_Scotia Bank, You're Richer Than You Think._

I looked farther down the well-lit street. There was a Dollar Giant, a Post Office, and what looked like a sign for a Subway restaurant. The longer I looked down the street, the more I felt that it was beckoning me, calling me, screaming for me to remember. I shook off the feeling and pulled my right hand out of my jacket pocket; a piece of folded, yellow paper was in my grasp. I unfolded the tattered paper and scanned the list of names and numbers until I found what I wanted.

"787 East 38th Avenue." I looked up again to find the name of the street I had been following for the past while.

_I'm on East 49th. So that's about... eleven blocks._

I looked both ways along Fraser, wondering which way to go. Then I locked eyes with the sign for the Subway restaurant. It had just lit up, signalling that the restaurant was now open for business. I had no Idea what time it was, maybe early morning, but I didn't care. I was cold and hungry, and the restaurant was like an oasis in the middle of a desert. I refolded the paper and put it back in my jacket pocket before digging my hand into the pocket of my jeans. Grabbing its contents, I pulled my hand out and proceeded to count the coins in my palm.

_Two tonnies, one loonie, three quarters, three dimes, two nickels, and a penny. That's at least six bucks._

I wasn't really sure, but six dollars sounded like enough for a simple BLT. I put the coins back in my pocket and started making my way up Fraser. Little did I know, that as I made my way to the restaurant, a group of figures walked out onto the corner where I had just been standing.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

My eyes burned as I opened them. Blinding sunlight streamed through the green leaves of trees as birds chirped in the distance. I was on the ground, grass prickling my back through my shirt. It felt like I had just woken up from a weird dream, but I couldn't remember what the dream was about.

I tried to sit up, but immediately fell back when I was met with excruciating pain; I couldn't move my right arm and my back was incredibly sore. Rolling over, I used my other arm to push myself off the ground and onto my knees. When I finally managed to stand up, pain shot through my left leg; unable to put a lot of weight on it. I had to use the tree that I woke up next to to support myself. Something was trickling down my temple. Sifting all of my weight to my right leg, I brought my hand to my temple and then drew it back. It was wet with red.

_Blood..._

I looked around. The only thing I could see other than a forest of trees was a small clearing, and in that clearing was a red car that had wrecked and flipped on its roof; its edges blurred and undefined. In fact, I had woken up on the edge of the clearing, about a metre from the car. I took a couple of limping steps towards it, thinking that someone was inside and needed my help. When I reached it, I painfully got down on my knees and looked through the shattered glass of the passenger side window. The car's contents were scattered on the ceiling, but the car was otherwise empty.

An object caught my eye, and I picked it up. It was a black and gray slider-type cell-phone with the letters 'LG' printed just under the receiving speaker. Below the letters was a rectangular screen with four symbols at the bottom of it, and below that were two circular buttons. The left button had a green shape that looked like the outline of a square that had been horizontally cut in half and propped up on one side to give the illusion that it was leaning to the right. The right button was a mirror image of the left one, except it was red and there was a small circle with a line inside it underneath it.

_Answer, hang up, power._

I pushed the red button and the screen lit up to reveal-

_-a numeric password?_

The screen displayed twelve rectangles in the form of a keypad; numbers one through nine taking up the top nine, the letters OK, the number zero and the letters DEL taking up the bottom three. The words 'Enter password to unlock' were at the top of the screen. The phone tugged at my mind, as to why, I didn't know. I stared at the screen until it dimmed and went black. Pushing the On button relit the screen, and I was again met with the keypad. This time however, I noticed a rectangular box displayed underneath the keypad. It had a red plus sign and the words 'Emergency call' on it. I pushed my thumb down on the rectangle and, for a moment, the screen displayed 'Calling '911'', only to show a full screen battery status; a single, red flashing bar at the bottom end of an outline. The screen blackened shortly after, and pressing the button again lit the same outline before blackening again. There was a harrowing moment of panic, but I calmed myself with reasoning.

_There's probably another one in here._

After sifting through the scattered items, I uncover two flip-phones. The first one was blue and silver with an 'M' on the front; it was dead. The second one was black with red accents, one being a black 'M' on a red circle. It was longer than the other flip-phone; about the same as the slider in length but two thirds the width. Surprisingly, the batter was at full charge. Equally surprising, the square digital display didn't state the date or time. Flipping it open and dialling 911, I lifted the phone to my ear and waited for it to ring, but it didn't. Instead, the phone made a 'Boop' sound. I lowered the phone to find that the words 'No signal' were displayed.

I just about dropped the phone. I was injured, and in the middle of nowhere with no supplies, two dead cell-phones and a charged cell phone that didn't have a signal. Some people would have given up; gone to a corner to mope. Others would have stayed with the car until someone came along and found them. But somehow I knew that the best thing to do was to go and find help. Going through the car's contents again, I found a loonie and a bunch of hard candies. Once I had stuffed them in my pockets, I turned to leave, but stopped when I noticed two levers next to the driver's seat. One had the image of a gas station pump, the other had a car with its trunk open.

_I should check the trunk, there might be something useful._

Reaching up, I pulled the lever, but nothing happened. I pulled it a few more times in rapid succession, nothing changed.

"Screw it..." I crawled out of the wreckage and slowly got to my feet, the phone now firmly in my grasp, and looked around. There weren't any land marks, no tire tracks, not even a steep hill or mountain to suggest that the car had gone off a nearby road. It was a wonder how the car had even ended up in the clearing with all of the densly packed trees. Bottom line: I had to wing it, but I didn't know which way to go. I scanned my surroundings again, and discovered a path through the trees.

"Here goes." I heard myself say as I took a step down the path and into the unknown.

I walked, walked, checked for a signal, and walked. I was tired. My leg hurt even more than before. I was thirsty, and hunger was setting in. The phone still wasn't getting any reception, and the hard candies hadn't helped quell my hunger, in fact they tasted disgusting. I knew that if I didn't find civilization soon that I'd die out here. Then, in a stroke of pure luck, building tops came into view. Overjoyed, I picked up my pace to the best of my ability. The ground started to slope downward as more buildings came into view.

_Just a little farther._

I could see what seemed to be a guardrail and I heard the sound of a passing car. A sigh of relief escaped my mouth.

_I'm gonna make it!_

Suddenly, the ground cut steeply downward and I practically ran my face into a green chain link fence as I fell forward and braced myself against it. There was a road on the other side, a route to civilization; there just _had_ to be a fence. Climbing wasn't something I could effectively do in my condition, but without any visible way around it I was force to do just that.

It was painstakingly slow, and not to mention painful. I spent three minutes getting to the top, where I spent four minutes reganing my pain endurance, and then spent another three minutes getting down. By some miracle I managed not to fall, and I was glad it was done and over with, but with one problem solved in came another; the street was deserted. With the car long gone, it was just an aging road going through a forest. I could still see the blurry roofs of nearby houses, but they were a good thirty metres away.

I leaned against the fence. Lifting my hand, I attempted to call for help again, but this time it rang. I raised the phone to my ear, which was soon met with the recording of a woman's voice that was speaking in a language other than English. My hand fell down to my side, and I felt the phone slip out my grasp. A loud clatter followed. This was it. I was screwed. My vision was blurred, I had a headache, and my leg throbbed in pain. I couldn't go any farther, I was finished.

I'm not sure how long I stood there, leaning against that fence. It could have been for a minute, it could have been for an hour, but eventually, a sudden noise reached my ear; a sharp intake of air. I barely had the strength to turn my head in the direction of the noise, but I managed to, and I saw a girl. She stood barely a metre away. Her face, jaw loose and dark eyes wide, told me shock. She had short brown hair that barely reached her shoulders; in it was some kind of hair band or ribbon that was yellow in colour. The blouse was white with sleeve ends and a V-shaped collar of purple and blue; stripes, blue purple blue. Showing through the open collar was... I don't know. Maybe it was an undershirt, or part of the blouse, or something. It was mostly light blue, with a white stripe near the top and a deformed purple 'M' near the bottom. Closing off the V-collar was a red ribbon tied into a bow. The blouse was tucked into a loose blue skirt. Long, dark brown socks climbed her legs and stopped below her knees; brown shoes. A blue bag hung from her shoulder. It wasn't a purse, it didn't look right. Her whole appearance struck a cord, as if I had seen her somewhere before.

She stared for a few moments, then her expression became one of concern. Words left her mouth. I couldn't understand what she said, but it sounded like a question.

"Do you speak English?" Her expression changed again, confusion one second, recognition the next.

"A little bit." She stated though a thick accent. I sighed in relief.

"Call '911'." I kept it simple.

She gave me a look at said, 'I don't get it.'

"Ambulance."

"Ah." Unzipping her bag, she reached in and pulled out a cell-phone. She began dialling, but stopped; looking past me, she spoke again. It sounded like another question.

_Who is she-_

I turned to see what she was looking at, and got a glance of something silver that was centimetres away from me. There hadn't been anything there beforehand. I jumped back, more like sideways; a bad move. My leg gave out. As I fell, I caught a glimpse of what had been next to me: a girl with silver hair wearing the same outfit. The awareness that silver hair was ridiculous crossed my mind, but I was more occupied with bracing for impact. I roughed up my elbow and banged my head, hard. Writhing in pain, I had the notion that I was supposed to be better on my feet than that. Trying to write it off, I began pushing myself off the ground, but the world spun out from under me.

I was sitting at a table in a small room. Two men were on the other side of the table. One was sitting in the chair across from me and the other was in the process of dragging a chair over for himself. A light brown folder had been placed on the table.

When I woke up, I had found myself on a bed in a small room. An IV was stuck in my left arm and a heart monitor was attached to my index finger. My right arm was in a sling, and though it was extremely sore and stiff, I could move it. I didn't have the energy to lift the covers and look at my leg, but I later learned that it was a minor fracture mixed in with a very nasty bruise. Not long after I awoke, a figure had walked into the room, and then left in less time than it takes for someone to say "it's alive" like the doctor who created Frankenstein.

The figure must have been a nurse, because a man, wearing a lab coat with a stethoscope resting on his shoulders, rushed in shortly afterward.

I later found myself in the small room that looked something like an interrogation room out of CSI. I sat in a plain, metal chair at a table that matched. Both men were now sitting across the table from me. The man on the left was an older Asian man, and was the doctor that had rushed into my hospital room. His face resembled that of an exotic shorthair cat. The man on the right, who had to get himself a chair, was a Caucasian in his thirties.

"Ahem," the Caucasian cleared his throat, "My name is Johnathan Legacy and I am a police officer from the local police department. However, I'll also be serving as a translator between you and Mr. Okamoto here." He made a hand gesture towards the doctor. "Do you understand?" I nodded. "Alright then," He opened the envelope, "I recently finished going over the results for the tests that were done, and I understand why Mr. Okamoto thinks that this is an urgent matter."

_Urgent?_

"You see, you sustained some very serious injuries. Aside from cuts that had glass imbedded in them and a very nasty bruise on your lower left leg, there's your dislocated shoulder," he pulled out an X-ray and held it in front of me before placing it on the table, "your fractured fibula," he pull out another X-ray and did the same as before, "and your concussion." He held up a paper with what looked like random colours on it. "And then there's the two week coma you were in."

_Coma?_

This was the first I was hearing of it.

"Now," He placed the paper in front of me as he spoke, "What Mr. Okamoto wants to know, along with the police force of the Hyogo Prefecture, is, what happened to you?"

_What...?_

It was then that I had the realization.

_What happened? Why did I wake up in a forest? Why was I injured? And where did that car come from? Was it there long before me, or is it there because of me?_

Tons of questions ran through my head, questions I didn't have the answers to.

"You don't know, do you?"

"No... I don't."

John sighed. He then turned to look at Mr. Okamoto and they exchanged a few words in a different language. When they were done, John looked back at me.

"Can you tell me something about yourself? Maybe your home address, your birthday or even your name?"

_My name…_

My mind was drawing blanks.

"Nothing?" I had fixed my gaze on the wood brown envelop that lay open on the table. It reminded me of something.

_A saying maybe? Or an analogy? Something to do with the comparison of a book and someone's mind._

I couldn't remember.

"Nothing at all?" I weakly shook my head in reply.

John and Okamoto exchanged some more words. "It is possible that you have Amnesia," then echoed throughout the room.

A few moments of silence followed; silence that was broken by John.

"Aside from yourself and what happened to you, what is the first thing that you can remember?"

I looked up from the table.

"Anything helps."

I hadn't noticed before, but John's hair was blue.

"I woke up in a forest..."

After telling them what I could, I was taken to a different hospital room. I guessed that I had initially been in the Intensive Care Unit and was put into a regular hospital room with four other patients to recover. That's where I spent the next week. Wait, let me clarify. I spent the next week _lounging_ as I recovered. You can't really blame me though. I was in a hospital, in some country, surrounded by people speaking a language I didn't understand, and I had amnesia. There's not a lot you can do to pass the time in a situation like that. So I did what I could, which soon turned into a daily routine.

Wake up, watch T.V., try to figure out what exactly I was watching, eat breakfast, which was whatever meal choice the nurses gave me, watch more T.V., eat lunch, watch even more T.V., have dinner, and, last but not least, wander around the hospital with a crutch to lean on and nurse to keep an eye on me. The more interesting part of most days was learning my way around the hospital and looking out the windows at the vast array of city lights, but even that got boring after awhile.

Eventually, the news came.

"Myself and a few of my fellow officers went to where you were found, and after some searching we discovered the clearing you told me about. However, we did not find a vehicle." I was sitting up on my hospital bed, the muted T.V. on in the background.

"We did find evidence suggesting that some kind of incident had occurred up there, but nothing that would indicate the presence of a heavily damaged vehicle." I proceeded to stare at the floor.

_The car is gone?_

It didn't make sense. I was absolutely sure that there had been a car there. Hell, I had been inside it, I had found that coin, those hard candies, and the-.

I jerked my head up and eagerly asked.

"What about the cell phone?"

"We didn't find one, and there isn't one in your bag of belongings. It's most likely that someone found it after you were taken here. And regarding your belongings-" There was a pause, "Well, all you really had were your shoes and the clothes on your back. You didn't have a wallet or a form of ID." The dead silence that followed his statement almost allowed me to hear the muted T.V.

"So, what happens now?" I asked, hoping for some kind of good news. Instead, I was given a hard, solemn look.

"For now, you will be staying in the hospital, but it's unclear what will happen once you recover. If there was some kind of proof that you are a Japanese citizen, then maybe the local government could assist you in some way." There was more silence. I allowed the words to sink in.

"Does that mean…," I paused, not sure if I wanted to hear the answer, "I'm gonna end up on the street, aren't I?" There was more silence.

"Yeah, most likely." I found myself looking back down at the floor, feeling defeated.

"Look," John broke another moment of silence, "you'll be in the hospital for another three or four weeks. I suggest that you get as much rest as possible. Then we'll go from there." There was a hint of hope in his voice as he spoke. "Who knows," he continued, "maybe your memory will return before you're discharged."

I wanted to believe him, but it was clear that the chances of that were slim. Suddenly, a tune echoed around the room with a familiar, hard to miss beat. He reached into his pocket, pulled out the source of the music and flipped it open before it could begin the chorus. The strangely familiar beat started bouncing around my skull, pushing me to find its significance.

A few seconds passed after he spoke into the microphone of his phone, during which his solemn expression was replaced with one of seriousness.

He spoke once more before he promptly shut the flip-phone and slid it back in his pocket. "Duty calls," he declared, turning and walking toward the door, "I'll be back sometime next week to-"

"What song was that?" John stopped mid stride and turned to look at me.

"'Harder, better, faster, stronger' by Daft Punk. Why? Did you remember something?" He retraced his steps back to the bed.

"No." My answer was so matter-of-fact that it threw me off.

_I shouldn't say that, I don't know if that's absolutely correct._

I looked up from the floor, I could almost see the gears turning in John's head.

"Does Portugal sound familiar?" I thought about it for a second.

"I don't know, why?"

"How about Canada?"

His phone began ringing again. "Shit." he retrieved it from his pocket as he turned to leave. "I really have to go." He rushed toward the door as he flipped open the phone, unknown words fading into the hallway. I sat there for a minute before grabbing hold of my wheeled IV-stand and slowly limping to the bathroom.


End file.
